The People Who Ran This Floor First

Jeff came up through the finance office at Ferguson Buick GMC, then spent eleven years as New Car Director at Edmond Hyundai — the #1 store in the region during his time there. He helped stand up Genesis of Edmond from the day it became a new point and ran it as GSM to #1 in a six-state region. Jeff takes pride in training others and watching them grow. Dozens of Jeff’s sales trainees are now sales managers, directors, and running their own stores.

Twenty years watching the same thing happen: stores spend a fortune getting customers through the door, then lose sight of them the moment they arrive. He built The Bell System inside a working dealership before it was ever software.

“Twenty years on a sales floor taught me that the problem is almost never just effort. It’s visibility.”

One thing most stores never do

“Send their best closer in every time.”

Off the clock

Family, and as much time on the water as he can get.

First car

90s Ford Probe GT.

Pat started Shred-Away Shredding out of a rented van in 2003, driving business to business and building it from nothing. Twenty-three years later it’s a family-owned Oklahoma company handling secure document destruction for commercial and public-sector accounts across the state. He’s spent his career in a business where the whole product is doing what you said you’d do, when you said you’d do it — and he’s found that dealerships want the same thing from their sales floors.

“You are only as good as the people you surround yourself with.”

One thing most stores never do

“Management talking to every customer.”

What he sees in dealerships

“Lack of consistency and efficiency. You have to have both to be the exception.”

Off the clock

Family, golf, and any kind of auto racing.

First car

1970 Ford LTD.

Adam is the technologist in the room. Eighteen years across technical support, engineering support, and IT leadership — enterprise storage systems, root-cause analysis, and building CRM and operations infrastructure from scratch as Director of Information Systems for two Oklahoma companies. He came to automotive as a customer rather than an insider, which is exactly why his read on the buying experience is critical.

“The key to having return customers is making them feel like they matter, not that they are just a deal.”

One thing most stores never do

“Value the customer as a person over the car deal itself.”

Off the clock

Building apps and websites is his passion. When he does take a night off — racing go-karts or walking the lake.

First car

A 1994 Chevy Cavalier convertible.

Steve started selling Hondas at Fowler in Norman wearing a bowtie, and moved 20+ cars a month doing it. He built the Customer Experience Manager role from scratch at Mercedes-Benz of Plano, managed a 100-person fixed ops department, then went to New Car Sales Director at BMW of Louisville and Bob Moore. From there he crossed to the vendor side — implementation and training at CarNow, then customer success and support leadership at Numa. He’s been the dealership calling the vendor and the vendor answering the call.

“Nobody ever designed a process where the customer sits alone for forty minutes. It just ended up that way in almost every store.”

One thing most stores never do

“Second showings. It reinforces ownership before they’ve signed anything.”

Off the clock

Cub Scouts with his son, Freemasonry, woodworking, and Thunder basketball.

First car

2000 Chevy Camaro with T-tops.